Monday, May 10, 2010

Pam Holland's Mexico Block

While Pam Holland was here teaching last week, I took pictures of many of the quilts she brought with her trunk show. I wanted to share with you some of her exquisite work. One of the reasons I wanted to spend time with her was to absorb some of her thought process as an artist.

How does she start a piece?

What are the steps she takes to create her works?

How does she see the world?

Pam can take the simplest of designs and turn them into small blocks that sing to me.

I especially loved the latest block from a recent trip to Mexico.

I would guess this piece measures around 16" X 16"

While Pam is traveling (which is 10 months out of the year) she does a lot of illustration.She sketched this while she was sitting on her balcony looking out on the city of Teotitlan.

Pam likes to create an illustration in both ink and pencil.

For this particular piece she used Derwent colored pencils.

Next comes the stitching. I've done some up close pictures, where you can practically count the threads. The stitching adds so much interest to the design. Some of her stitching is 1/16th of an inch apart, and she loves to use MasterPiece by Superior Threads.

Pam's artistic talent really shines through as she decides what section would look best left as an ink drawing, colored in, or enhanced by stitching.

Just perfect! You can see why she wins award after award for her work.

You can read more about this block from Mexico and Pam's thoughts and process on her blog post HERE.